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Saturday, August 20, 2016

Fur Babies

Y'all, preparing to leave 3 kids at home with various caregivers for 2 weeks is no joke.Preparing to leave 4 very old fur babies at home may be even more of a concern!Back in our pre-kids day, we were DUMB and treated ourselves to 2 kittens. Of course, they were adorable and so much fun (then). Then we got 2 sibling puppies and of course that was awesome too.But then we had kids.Why oh why did we do that???

So we now have almost 5 kids, 2 very old dogs, 2 very old cats and THREE aquariums full of fish and crawdads. Our cats are old (15), but could still live several more years. Our dogs, especially our biggest dog, should not be alive for a dog his size! They are 14 years and counting... Of course we love each one of them, but they all have become extremely needy in the last few years, and even though it'll be hard, we'll be okay when it's time to say goodbye.

Both dogs take a thyroid pill every day. One dog takes an anti-inflammatory pill every day. One cat has major skin issues in the summer and has to go in for shots. Recently, one dog had surgery to remove an abscess, another had surgery to remove a tumor (in his PRIVATE, which resulted in him peeing sideways) and the cat had to have an absess removed on his head. That included a t-shirt that the dog had to wear for a couple weeks and a cone for the cat.Our biggest dog (they are siblings from the same litter but he is much bigger than her) has a very weak hind-end, so he has a hard time getting up, doing stairs and basically moving.We are ALWAYS at the vet.

One dog is literally afraid of her shadow and yelps anytime we come near her unexpectedly.

One dog and 2 cats pee ALL OVER MY HOUSE. One cat pees everywhere so much that we had to construct a cage for her in the basement. She still pees outside of the litter box and it runs out onto the floor for us to step in. We put the other cat in with her to eat, and then he jumps out of the cage and pees wherever he wants until we let him up.One dog is literally almost completely deaf. The other dog's hearing is going. Just to get their attention to go outside takes several of us shouting and clapping. Then when they finally get moving, it's like they're moving through molasses to the door. Then they just stand outside and bark to come in.It's constant insanity. Constant. Someone is always barking, peeing, needing a pill, needing to go to the vet. Oh and did I mention that both our dogs are more like goats and they eat toys, puzzles, books, papers and WET PULL-UPS whenever we don't keep things picked up?So yeah. Good luck with all that, caregivers. We're sorry.